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your mother’s breasts.
I hurt myself when you died: let the scars from those wounds
burst open and flow in a stream of plentiful blood.
You were our country’s pillar, you delayed our destiny,
you were safety to the Trojans when they tired,
you were our wall, our strong support, whose back
lifted the city up for ten long years.
Troy fell when you did: Hector’s day of death
was also his city’s end.
Now change your lamentation.
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Shed your tears for Priam.
Hector has enough.
chorus King of Phrygia, let us give you tears:
accept our weeping, old man, twice defeated.*
Troy’s sufferings in your reign were never single.
Twice Trojan walls were battered by Greek arms,
twice the bow of Hercules* was turned on Troy.
After Hecuba’s royal children died, you last of all,
their father finished the line of death. You lie on Trojan sand,
a sacrifice slaughtered to great Jupiter,
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a headless corpse.
hecuba Now turn your tears to someone else.
The death of my Priam is not so sad,
Trojan women.
Say it, all of you: ‘Priam was lucky.’
He went down free to the land of the dead,
he will never have to carry the Greek yoke on his neck in defeat.
He does not have to look at the sons of Atreus,
* * *
trojan women
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or see that trickster, Ulysses.
He is not walking as a prize in an Argive triumph,
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his neck bowed down with trophies.
His hands, accustomed to the sceptre, are not bound
behind his back, nor will he be weighed down
with golden chains, to follow Agamemnon’s chariot,
a spectacle for wide Mycenae.
chorus Lucky Priam, we all agree.
When he died he took his kingdom with him.
Now he wanders safely in the shadows
of the Elysian fields, and lucky man, he looks
for Hector among the spirits of the good.
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Lucky Priam. This is happiness:
to die in war and take away, with loss of self,
all other losses.
ACT TWO
talthybius What a long delay! The Greeks are always stuck
in a harbour,*
whether they want to go to war or go back home.
chorus Tell us what is keeping the Greek fleet.
Explain what god bars the way.
talthybius My heart is frightened. A terrible trembling
shakes my body.
I have seen horrors, incredible horrors, with my own eyes.
Dawn was touching the mountain tops, and day had
conquered night,
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when all of a sudden a bellowing roar came up from the darkness
as the earth groaned, collapsed, and gathered up all her folds.
The trees swayed their heads, the forest and sacred grove
thundered with a mighty crash all over.
An avalanche of rocks poured down Mount Ida.
Earth was not the only one to shake: even the sea
felt that its own Achilles* was at hand, the waves lay prostrate.
Then the valleys split, opening vast chasms,
the gaping of Hell gave a path to the upper world
through the broken earth. The mound of the dead was raised. 180
* * *
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trojan women
Out came the giant ghost of the lord of Thessaly,*
strong as when he was in training, Troy, for fighting you,
when he beat Thrace in battle, or as when
he overpowered Neptune’s shining, white-haired son.*
Or when, raging with battle-lust on the front lines
he packed the rivers with corpses, and Xanthus* flowed
slow and meandering, with blood for water, blocked.
Or when he stood victorious, proud in his chariot:
holding the reins he dragged behind him Hector* — and Troy.
His angry cry filled the whole shore:
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‘Come, come, you idlers! Get me the prizes
I earned by the work of my hands. Let loose your useless ships,
go sail my seas. Greece already paid dear
for the anger of Achilles, and will pay even more.
Let Polyxena be married to my ashes,
with Pyrrhus’ hand to slaughter her, and let my tomb be wet.’
Then he sent day away, brought back deep night,
and he returned to Hell. Sinking, he closed up
the mighty chasm; earth was whole again. Still lay the sea
and calm, the wind abandoned all its threats,
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the peaceful ocean burbles with a gentle wave,
while a merman chorus sang a wedding song.
pyrrhus You merrily launched your sails to go home on the sea,
and you forgot Achilles. It was his hand alone
that made Troy fall. Once he was gone, Troy paused:
standing only while she wondered where to fall.
Even if you eagerly gave him what he asks,
it is too late. All the other leaders have already
taken prizes. What lesser reward can be given
for such a hero? Did he not deserve much,
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who, when he was ordered to avoid the war,* grow old
sitting out his long life, and to outdo
the years of Nestor,* stripped off his disguise,
and bared his mother’s tricks, and proved himself a man by arms.
Impulsive Telephus* refused to grant
a way through his fierce and unfriendly kingdom.
This king’s blood was the first to wet his novice hand,
this king who knew Achilles as harsh and gentle both.
Thebes fell and Etion,* conquered, saw
* * *
trojan women
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his city captured. Likewise little Lyrnesos,
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set on its mountain tops, was overthrown.
The homes of captured Briseis and Chryseis,*
over whom kings once fought, now lie in ruins.
and famous Tenedos, and fertile Scyros,
whose rich pasture feeds the Thracian herds,
and Lesbos, cutting through the Aegean Sea,
and Cilla,* loved by Phoebus. What of the other lands
which Caycus* washes, bringing springtime floods?
So much genocide and so much fear,
so many cities sacked, as by a tornado,
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would be, for anyone else, the utmost triumph.
For Achilles it was normal. That was how my father was,
he waged enormous wars just as a warm-up.
If I skip his other achievements, would not Hector
have been enough? My father won Troy,
you others just demolished it. I am happy to follow
my great father’s glorious honors and his famous deeds.
Hector lay dead before his father’s eyes,
Memnon* before his uncle’s — grieving for him, his mother
Dawn made sunrise sad, because her face was grey.
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Achilles was the victor but he shuddered at the lesson:
even the sons of goddesses* can die.
Then he killed the savage Amazon,* the last fear of all.
Achilles, if you judge his merits fairly, has deserved
any girl he wants, even from Mycenae or Argos.
Are you still hesitating? Do you disapprove of our customs,
&n
bsp; all of a sudden, and think it barbaric to slaughter
Priam’s daughter to the son of Peleus? But you had a daughter,*
and you slaughtered her for Helen. I am asking for the
usual thing.
agamemnon Lack of self-discipline is a young man’s fault.
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Other boys are seized by their own hot adolescence:
Pyrrhus, by his father’s. In the old days, I was tolerant
to proud Achilles, with his temper and his threats.
The more power you have, the more patience you need.
Why soak the glorious tomb of a noble leader
with shocking bloodshed? First learn the crucial lesson:
there is an etiquette to victory, a limit to defeat.
* * *
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trojan women
Those who abuse their power never stay powerful long.
Moderate governments survive. The higher Fortune
has raised aloft the works of human hands,
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so much the more the wise man, feeling lucky, checks himself.
He knows how many ways things can go wrong, and fears
gods when they act too kindly. Victory itself
taught me how fast you can lose everything. Does Troy
make us proud or savage? No. We Greeks stand at the height
from which Troy fell. I admit, sometimes I was
tyrannical, too proud, out of control.
My pride is humbled by the very thing
which would have puffed up others: Fortune’s smile.
Priam, you make me proud, but also frightened.
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Can I believe that royal power is anything
but an empty, gilded name, hair fettered with false beauty?
A sudden mishap may take all away —
maybe it will not even take ten years, or a thousand ships.
Fortune is not so slow to pounce on everyone.
Listen, I will admit — forgive me, Argos —
I wanted the Trojans conquered, beaten, crushed.
I did not want the city sacked. I would have stopped it.
But there are things no harness can restrain:
anger, a burning enemy, and victory
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let loose upon the night. Brutality, and crimes
against humanity, were caused by bitterness
and darkness, which provokes our wildest rage,
and by the luck of the sword: when blood once wets the blade
it goes crazy craving more. Whatever survives
from ruined Troy, let it be. We have taken enough revenge,
and more than enough. Should a virgin princess die,
a gift to a tomb, and her blood wet the ashes,
should this foul murder be called ‘marriage’? No.
I will not allow it. The faults of all my men return to me.
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Allowing a crime you could stop is instigation.
pyrrhus So will the dead Achilles get no prize?
agamemnon He will, and everyone will sing his praises,
and countries yet unknown will learn his glorious name.
But if his ashes take delight in streams of blood,
then chop the necks of good plump Trojan cattle:
* * *
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let blood be shed for which no mother weeps.
What is this custom of yours? When was a human life
offered as payment for a human ghost? Protect your father
from hatred. The ritual that you want will damn him.
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pyrrhus You are so full of yourself. When things go well
you get all high and mighty, and when panic comes
you lord it over kings. Is your heart on fire,
have you suddenly fallen in love with some new flame?
Are you, yet again, the only one of us to get a prize?
With this right hand of mine, I will give Achilles a victim.
If you refuse to give her, keep her back,
I will offer a better victim — a match for Pyrrhus.
I am a prince. Too long my hand has rested
from killing kings. Priam needs a partner.
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agamemnon
I do not deny
that this is the greatest glory of Pyrrhus in war,
that Priam lies hacked down by a cruel sword,
a father begging for help.
pyrrhus
I realized, to my father,
all enemies begged mercy. But Priam came
to ask in person. You, overwhelmed with fear,
were not brave enough to ask. You made your request
via Ajax and Ulysses.* You skulked, you avoided conflict.
agamemnon So presumably it was not fear that made
your father opt out of war, forget his weapons.
When Greeks were getting killed and ships were burning,
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he sat there picking out pretty tunes on his lute.
pyrrhus At that time mighty Hector had contempt for you,
but feared Achilles’ songs. In the midst of such great terror,
deep peace lay on the ships of Thessaly.
agamemnon Yes. And among those same Thessalian ships,
deep peace came back again for Hector’s father.
pyrrhus It is the mark of a high king to grant life to a king.
agamemnon Why then did your hands tear life from a king?
pyrrhus Mercy often means giving death, not life.
agamemnon Are you being merciful, in asking for the girl
to be sacrificed?
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pyrrhus It is too late for you to say that killing girls is wrong.*
agamemnon A king should put his country before his children.
* * *
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trojan women
pyrrhus No law protects prisoners of war. Punishing them is
legal.*
agamemnon Conscience prevents the crimes that law allows.
pyrrhus Winners in war can do whatever they like.
restrained.
pyrrhus You dare to boast of that to men who have endured
ten years of tyranny — till Pyrrhus set them free?
agamemnon Typical Scyros arrogance!*
pyrrhus
Brothers are brotherly
there.*
agamemnon A remote little island—
pyrrhus
Washed by my cousin, 340
the sea.*
I know the famous family of Atreus and Thyestes.
agamemnon You are the product of a virgin’s secret rape.*
When Achilles fathered you, he was not yet a man.
pyrrhus I am the son of that Achilles whose inheritance
spread out through all the world of heavenly gods:
he got the sea from Thetis, Hell from Aeacus, sky from Jove.*
agamemnon Of that Achilles now shot dead by Paris.
pyrrhus Of that Achilles whom gods feared to fight.*
agamemnon I could shut you up and curb your insolence
with torture. But my sword understands
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how to show mercy, even to captives. Instead, come, Calchas,
prophet of the gods. If the Fates demand, I will pay.
You released the chains that tied up our Greek fleet,
and ended the wait for war; your art opened up the sky,
you read the signs of fate in the hidden entrails,
in the thunder, in the star which trails
its path with a long flame; your words have always cost
a heavy price for me.* Calchas, tell us
what god demands, and guide us with advice.
calchas Fates grant the Greeks a way home, at the usual price: 360
the death of a girl, to be
slaughtered at the Thessalian
leader’s tomb.
But let her wear the clothes girls wear for getting married
in Thessaly, Ionia, or Mycenae.
Let Pyrrhus give a new wife to his father.
* * *
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That is the proper offering. But this is not the only
cause of delay to our fleet: more blood is needed,
bluer blood than yours, poor Polyxena.
The fates demand the boy. Let him fall from the highest tower:
Hector’s son, Priam’s grandson. Let him die.
Then let the thousand sails of our fleet fill up the ocean.
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chorus Is it true, or a myth to deceive the fearful,
that spirits live on after bodies are buried,
when the wife has laid her hand on the dead man’s eyes,
and his last day has blocked out the sun
and the mournful urn contains his ashes?
Is it pointless to give our souls to death,
since we, poor things, still have to keep on living?
Or do we totally die, and does no part of us
remain, when with a fleeting gasp
our spirit mixes with the clouds and turns to air,
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as the torch beneath the pyre ignites the naked flesh?
In the lands the rising sun knows well, and the lands of the sunset,
and places where the ocean with its dark blue waves
ebbs twice a day, and washes with the tide,
time will swoop like Pegasus, take everything away.
As the Zodiac goes rushing, flying through the sky,
fast as the lord of the stars,* making the seasons turn,
as swift as Hecate,* queen of the moon, when she hastens
whirling around on her slanting path,
so all of us hurry to our appointed ends.
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The person who has touched the lake by which gods swear
their oaths*
is nowhere any more. As smoke from a hot fire
looks dirty for a minute and then fades,
as heavy clouds which we have glimpsed just now
suddenly disappear with a puff of the cold North Wind,
so flows away this breath which is our master.
After death is nothing. Even death itself
is nothing: just the finishing-line in the race.
If you hunger for life, abandon hope. If you worry, let go fear.
Hungry time and emptiness devour us.
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Death is a single whole: it kills our body
and does not spare the soul. The realm of Taenarus,*
* * *
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